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Confusion around managed vs unmanaged solutions / agents and different environments

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Posted on by JT-21111047-0

TL;DR: What is the recommended workflow for developing Studio Agents in an unmanaged solution and then publishing them into a managed solution?

Hopefully someone can give me some guidance! I have developed two helper agents which take a single PDF document (our user manual) as a knowledge base; each of these is then embedded in a relevant .NET Blazor application which drives an internal website. Initially these were created in our default environment (let's call it Environment A) but then our admin realised we had to set up a new environment for these agents to work correctly (I think due to licensing) - let's call that Environment B.

To support this I exported my Copilot Studio Agents solution from Environment A with the 'Managed' option checked (I didn't realise what this meant at the time), imported that into Environment B and altered my web app to point to that new agent ID in Env B. All was working well. Then we needed to update the user manual due to some new features - which was when I discovered that my agents in the managed solution in Env B were uneditable. I was able to add a reference to the new user manual but could not remove the old one, so now we have an agent with conflicting knowledge info.

I realised that I'd exported and imported these agents as a managed solution so went back to Environment A to make my edits there. I figured at this point we'd want to move everything out of Env A and should have a Dev unmanaged solution in Env B as well as a Production managed solution in Env B - so I renamed my agents in Env A with 'DEV' in their names to make everything clear, exported and imported to Env B. This resulted in my production agents in Env B having the latest correct content...but with the 'DEV' label showing. This was no doubt my error as I'd effectively replaced the production agents with versions including the 'DEV' name - so I thought that'd be easy to fix, just remove the 'DEV' name from the Env A agents and repeat the process. But no! Whatever I do my agents in Env B will NOT be replaced and seem to forever be stuck with this 'DEV' moniker.

So I now have:

2 correctly named and updated agents in Env A in an unmanaged solution, but cannot be used as the environment has the wrong licensing

2 incorrectly named agents in Env B in a managed solution which I cannot edit at all.

Is there any way to fix all this without deleting the whole lot and starting again from scratch?? Obviously I don't want to do that as whilst my production agents have 'DEV' written all over them, they do work as expected.

Many thanks for your help!

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,974 Moderator on at

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HI @JT-21111047-0

So let's clarify what you are supposed to do

1. Change the version in Dev, via Settings

2. Publish all customizations

3. Export both an unmanaged and managed solution

4. Import managed into Test

5. Cycle and repeat while you fix stuff

6. If you are using a pipeline go from Test (aka SIT) to UAT for user acceptance

7. Pipeline from UAT to production or use the same managed solution in all

Make sure you are using Environment variables (never name anything - Dev or Prod etc) if you want to identify the environment Type it is (DIT/SIT/UAT/PERF/PROD)

Now as to cleaning up... honestly I am following what you said, but you SHOULD start over.

But that being said you are creating multiple versions of these things and is why Dev is not going away, you are not really updating the Agent that you want. If you were it would go away (the word Dev)

If I were you...

I would create an Unmanaged Solution in Prod.. put the thing you WANT in it. Export it

Delete anything else in DEV NOT PROD

Import that

Fix what you want

In Production, you WILL have to delete the stuff you have, but thats ok you are about to put it back

Delete any unmanaged and managed solutions with your Agents

Import your new Managed Solution, which is coming full Circle from Prod back to Dev back to Prod

I have to fix this for people all the time.

If these suggestions help resolve your issue, Please consider Marking the answer as such and also maybe a like.

Thank you!
Sincerely, Michael Gernaey

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JT-21111047-0 5 on at

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Thank you Michael for this helpful information. It turns out that when I last exported and imported, I'd checked the box to allow content modifications (or something similar - I can't find it now) - so I was able to remove 'DEV' from my production agents, which now all look as they should. This will at least give me time to sort out my environments properly as you've suggested.

Best

Jim

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